How to beat chocolate cravings

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Ben
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How to beat chocolate cravings

Post by Ben »

Some may find the following article of interest. Particularly the nexus of the research findings and vipassana bhavana practice


How to beat chocolate cravings


February 11, 2011 - 11:25AM


Crush cravings ... resist temptation by accepting it.

So you want to beat that constant craving for chocolate? The first step is to learn to acknowledge and accept the yearning, according to new research.
"If you stop fighting and ... accept something it loses its influence and power over your life," says psychologist and CSIRO researcher Dr Robyn Vast.
The sweet treat has long been associated with love and gluttony, and Australians munch their way through about $2 billion worth of it a year, says the Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus).
Chocolate stimulates the release of the hormone serotonin - the body's natural happiness drug.
To test what drives our addiction to chocolate, Dr Vast recruited 110 volunteers in Adelaide and divided them into three groups.
Each group was given a bag of chocolate to carry around for a week, with the aim of resisting the goodies in the bag.
The first group was given no intervention, and 43 per cent totally resisted chocolate.
The second group was taught how to control cravings, with 56 per cent able to abstain from eating chocolate over the seven-day period.
The third group was encouraged to acknowledge and accept temptation when it arose.
"The third group was taught an acceptance-based approach with 81 per cent eating no chocolate at all," Dr Vast told AAP.
Dr Vast sas cravings are a little bit like an itch, they seemingly come from nowhere and demand our full attention when they occur.
Just like an itch demands to be scratched, so too can cravings be hard to deny.
"What I found was that if people accept craving for chocolate as human behaviour, just something that happens to them, then you take the fight out of it," she says.
"It takes the pressure off."
Dr Vast, who shared her findings at an RiAus seminar this week called Gluttony: The Lure of Chocolate, will publish her study later this year.
Also speaking at the seminar, Haigh chief chocolate taster Brendan Somerville explored another reason why we find chocolate so hard to resist: it simply tastes good.
"Flavour depends on where the cocoa has been grown, and whether it's been imported as a bean or in pre-made blocks," he said.
Somerville, who describes himself as a "quality assurance technician" rather than a chocolate taster, says he never gets sick of testing chocolate, although his palate has become more discerning.
"I prefer dark chocolate, around 70 per cent. You get a better subtlety of flavours. But no - I'm not addicted."
Researchers at the Spanish Council for Scientific Research in Madrid, Spain found that ordinary cocoa and chocolate bars contain a group of alkaloids known as tetrahydro-beta-carbolines.
The same chemicals have been linked to alcoholism, which may also explain cravings.

http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/well ... 1ap9d.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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tiltbillings
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Re: How to beat chocolate cravings

Post by tiltbillings »

Image(slave free)
ImageMmmMMmmm, chocolate.

http://www.julietbennett.com/2009/09/11/chocolate1/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Ben
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Re: How to beat chocolate cravings

Post by Ben »

Yep, 85%. That's my treat!
But after returning home from my recent retreat, it (the chocolate) no longer has the same pull.
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
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ground
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Re: How to beat chocolate cravings

Post by ground »

Being aware that chocolate production today still entails child labour and slavery may suffice for some to abandon chocolate completely.

Or:
Giving in to one sense pleasure opens the door for complete failure.

Or:
How does chocolate look once digested?

Or:
The Buddha taught to eat just to maintain this body and not for pleasure or other distractions.


Kind regards
Euclid
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Re: How to beat chocolate cravings

Post by Euclid »

If you need some additional encouragement, I'd recommend watching this great BBC doco about the cocoa bean trade and the child labour behind it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjwkRkdP5i4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Ben
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Re: How to beat chocolate cravings

Post by Ben »

TMingyur wrote:Being aware that chocolate production today still entails child labour and slavery may suffice for some to abandon chocolate completely.

Or:
Giving in to one sense pleasure opens the door for complete failure.

Or:
How does chocolate look once digested?

Or:
The Buddha taught to eat just to maintain this body and not for pleasure or other distractions.


Kind regards
Indeed!
I was actually just thinking of the use of child slave labour in cocoa plantations in west africa. If you haven't seen it, an excellent documentary exposing the child slave labour in 'fairtrade' chocolate. Search for 'the bitter truth of chocolate' to find it.

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
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appicchato
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Re: How to beat chocolate cravings

Post by appicchato »

How does chocolate look once digested?
Once digested it's gone, what's to look at?...prior to being digested (digesting), how does anything look?...
Euclid
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Re: How to beat chocolate cravings

Post by Euclid »

Ben wrote: Indeed!
I was actually just thinking of the use of child slave labour in cocoa plantations in west africa. If you haven't seen it, an excellent documentary exposing the child slave labour in 'fairtrade' chocolate. Search for 'the bitter truth of chocolate' to find it.

Ben

You and me are on the same wavelength apparently Ben. The link to that very doco is in my post just above yours if anybody is curious
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Ben
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Re: How to beat chocolate cravings

Post by Ben »

Euclid wrote:
Ben wrote: Indeed!
I was actually just thinking of the use of child slave labour in cocoa plantations in west africa. If you haven't seen it, an excellent documentary exposing the child slave labour in 'fairtrade' chocolate. Search for 'the bitter truth of chocolate' to find it.

Ben

You and me are on the same wavelength apparently Ben.
Apparently so, Euclid!
Euclid wrote:The link to that very doco is in my post just above yours if anybody is curious
When I saw your post, I thought it must have been.
Its a very good doco.
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
daverupa
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Re: How to beat chocolate cravings

Post by daverupa »

A similar method eradicates cigarette cravings, in case people think nicotine cravings are 'too strong' for such a practice to work.
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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Annapurna
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Re: How to beat chocolate cravings

Post by Annapurna »

Chocolate is good for me. Healthy. Feel good hormons. Antioxidants..... :popcorn:

MORE! :D

I eat cacao based food moderately but nearly daily. Why not? I also eat bread daily.
PeterB
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Re: How to beat chocolate cravings

Post by PeterB »

Why not indeed...without wanting to get too graphic, I find a little chocolate aids a certain vital function in the removal of solid waste. My gut likes it, and in fact the literature says that it "promotes a smooth peristaltic action " all that AND it tastes good.
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ground
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Re: How to beat chocolate cravings

Post by ground »

appicchato wrote:
How does chocolate look once digested?
Once digested it's gone, what's to look at?....
Disgusting slime. It would be foul smelling beyond that.

Kind regards
PeterB
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Re: How to beat chocolate cravings

Post by PeterB »

Thats all the forum needs...a mahayanist puritan.... :?
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ground
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Re: How to beat chocolate cravings

Post by ground »

The title is "How to beat chocolate cravings"

I try to stay on topic while others actually try to foster chocolate cravings.

Actually the "disgusting slime and foul smelling" approach is very effective against all kinds of lust. It just takes a bit concentration and some capacity for visualization.

Kind regards
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